


Five people who flinched away from Zeno and one (well, more then one) who didn't

by Gerbilfriend



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Loyalty, Zeno-centric (Akatsuki no Yona), i have feels about zeno and yona okay?, look Zeno is the mc, there is gonna be gore here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/pseuds/Gerbilfriend
Summary: What it says on the can, Zeno, through the years and the people who he met along the way
Relationships: Happy Hungry Bunch & Zeno, Yona & Zeno (Akatsuki no Yona)
Kudos: 55





	Five people who flinched away from Zeno and one (well, more then one) who didn't

One:

Zeno slams his hand into the wall to show what he’d discovered one day when his hand had slipped while polishing a blade.

It had healed in moments.

It hurts when he smashes his fist into the rock but the pain doesn’t last.

At least not that pain.

He sees his king flinch as he shows his skin, unblemished saved for a few drops of blood. There's something in his eyes that Zeno knows he can’t place.

_ Is my power that weak? _

Hiryuu doesn’t even let Zeno stand in front of him anymore, instead keeping him behind.

Zeno had the feeling that if Hiryuu could keep him behind, could leave him at the castle he would.

It aches.

(Centuries later Zeno will think back to this moment and understand why Hiryuu had flinched.

It doesn’t make it any better.

Not when his King hadn’t even needed him)

Two:

Zeno feels wrong in his body for days after the battle. He felt wrong because he was wrong.

Because he should be dead.

Severed.

He wants out of it. Like he is constantly pulling back but can’t because it is his body and he can’t just get out of it and-

Every time he goes past a blade he resists the urge to test it.  _ Would he die if he was stabbed through the heart. _

_ Beheaded? _

He passes a body of water and wonders if he could drown.

Zeno didn’t know the answer.

Three:

Zeno stands alone on the battlefield and doesn’t want to be there. Wants to be anywhere but there.

The swords thud in, one by one, leaving searing bolts of pain in his body.

He’s tired of hurting.

The soldier's eyes are wide as they watch him get back up.

As he pulls the blades out one by one, his flesh shifts and stretches.

It itches along with the burning.

The swords make dull thumping noises as they fall to the ground.

One by one.

Distantly he hears screaming.

It doesn’t matter.

He has a job to do.

Four:

Zeno pulls himself from the water and tries not to moan as sunlight finally strikes again.

It's warm. _ Zeno had thought that Zeno would never be warm again! _

Zeno felt a prickle down the back of his neck.

He flopped over and promptly met the startled, wide eyes of a fisherman.

_ Oops.  _ Zeno thought about how he had to have looked, pulling himself from the depths to the shore. “Zeno is sorry. Zeno didn’t mean to startle you mister fisherman”.

It didn’t matter.

The fisherman ran away.

“Yeah, Zeno expected that”.

It might have been nice to talk a little, even if the fisherman was just going to die soon and leave Zeno like everyone else did.

He turned. 

The sun was warm on his skin and breathing was nice.

His lungs weren’t aching anymore. 

_ In. _

_ Out. _

_ In. _

_ Out. _

He turned over, heaving and coughing as more and more water spilled out, tasting acrid as it mixed with bile.

Finally it was over.

Zeno moved to a dry spot and flopped over.

_ Zeno is never doing that again! _

It had been silly to hope that water would be enough, but Zeno was just so tired and-

He didn’t move until he heard the shouting in the distance. Zeno didn’t really feel like dealing with more startled people.

Five:

Zeno hadn’t wanted them to find out. It had been a temporary thing, traveling with the caravan of traveling entertainers, but Zeno had liked it.

Everyone was cheerful and laughed and didn’t mind if Zeno was silly.

They embraced it.

It was warm.

Warm in a people way and Zeno didn’t quite want to learn their names because Zeno knew how much more it would hurt if he did.

But groups like this were temporary and didn’t mind him drifting in and it was nice, if only for a few moments, not to be alone.

He hadn’t wanted them to find out.

It would have been better, so much better if Zeno could just have traveled with them until people started going old and gray and whispering and then Zeno could have wandered off with another smile and a laugh.

“Zeno thinks you guys should stop”. 

“What are you going to do about it boy”, the bandit snarls and Zeno already knows how this is going to go.

The sword cuts through him and it's troublesome really. “Zeno wishes you all would just run away”, he says, right before a horse runs over him, pressing and focing and he can feels his bones crack under the strain,

His scales are fully out then.

The rest of the fight is over.

He turns back to the caravan. 

They are staring at him, not smiling, eyes wide with fright. “Zeno is sorry, Zeno didn’t mean to scare you guys”, he tries but they are still staring.

Zeno knows it's time to go.

Plus One (well, more than one, really):

Zeno hear’s the Miss scream as the sword priced his chest. He’s falling back, mommentaly wicked as parts of his body shut down in the moments before his regeneration kicks in.

Normally those moments where Zeno doesn’t have to think never last long enough.

Zeno needs this one to be over.

She's holding him even as Zeno gets her clothes bloody. 

The soldier is saying something but it doesn’t really matter. Zeno just needs to move before the soldier does.

_ Getting stabbed in the heart really is troublesome.  _

Yona was still holding him. Cradling him. He could see her tears mixed with his blood.

The soldiers were laughing.

He could move again.

His master’s eyes were wide as he looked at her, his blood still drying on her face even after the wound was sealed.

He got up.

Something settled in Zeno as he told her, and he finally got to voice what had kept him chained to the earth as everything had faded to the heavens.

He was the Oruryuu, the dragon born to be her shield. 

Hiryuu hadn’t let him and Zeno knows why, understands why his first master had held him back, had wanted to protect him.

But that isn’t an option now.

Not now when there is no one else who can.

But that's why he was there. Thay why had had remained even when all the others had passed on.

This was why.

Zeno didn’t really want to fight the soldiers, except for the fact that if he didn’t they would hurt his master, they would hurt his brothers, they would hurt the mister and the lad and Zeno had waited for so long to be home again.

The soldier shouts again and he falls back into his master's arms, a space that he had waited, and he knows that Yona’s hurting from seeing him like this because she’s Yona.

It's just another reason to end this quickly.

He takes the Miss’s sword when his arms get cut off and runs it through the soldier who laughed at her.

Who threatened her.

It's all too easy to cut him down.

_ Maybe if I’m scary enough they’ll run away? _

He asked them. Yona hadn’t moved from behind him, hadn’t flinched away and that was good because she never had to be afraid of him, because he was her dragon, but it was bad because he was only one man and-

They focus on him. That's good.

They tear him apart but it doesn't matter. He’s waited and waited and is finally where he belongs again.

He’s finally home again.

He’s not going to lose it.

“I will be everyone’s shield”, he swears.

After that they can’t pierce him anymore. That's good. They try for a bit before fleeing.

He watches them run. 

Then he isn’t anymore because Yona’s arms are around him, Kija and Shin-ah and Yun around him and holding him tight, Hak and Jae-ha behind them.

They hold him tight and Zeno loves them, he loves them so much it hurts in the way being stabbed hasn’t for thousands of years and they hold him tight and-

“You are all adorable”.

He loves them.


End file.
